Shon Flanary
The classes that are chosen to run at the various tracks around east Tennessee, and around the country for that matter, can vary from season to season. One division may become the hot ticket for a couple of years and then give way to another almost as quickly as it came into favor. In recent months, the Open Wheel Modified class has begun to take hold in this area among the tracks and their promoters…and that’s just fine with Surgoinsville, Tenn. driver Shon Flanary.
The 45-year-old ace has competed in this class successfully over the years but has had to do so, for the most part, on the clay surfaces outside his home state. But with tracks such as Tazewell Speedway, 411 Motor Speedway and others hosting the Modified cars of late, Flanary has been able to stay closer to home on a more regular basis.
“It’s good,” Flanary said in an interview with InsideDirtRacing.com. “I’m glad to see the tracks getting the car counts. It means a lot not only for them to put out the effort to have the class but also for the guys in the area to show up. It looks really good for the future for Modifieds in Tennessee.”
The driver believes that these cars are well suited for racing on the typically high-banked facilities in this region. At the same time, however, he also believes that racing on the steep turns can lead to some bad habits in terms of setup and driving style.
“I think the Modifieds work better on the high banking,” Flanary declared. “You can get fast here in Tennessee on these high banked tracks like Tazewell or Bulls Gap and then you can’t line up if you go to a small, flat track. But they can get you in some bad habits too. You don’t always learn a lot about your car, you just kind of go fast. But they’re fun.”
According to the pilot of the No. 98 machine, Modified racers must be driven in a very different way than their Late Model counterparts on dirt surfaces.
Flanary(98) believes that Modifieds race well on the high banks of Tennessee tracks
“With an Open Wheel you have to keep it straighter and keep it under you more,” Flanary explained. “With a Late Model, sometimes you’ve got to bend them a little harder.”
And there’s more than just driving style that varies between the two. While both can prove to be an expensive hobby or profession, the Modified may have a bit of an advantage of the Late Model in terms of cost.
“If you’re going to travel a lot it takes more money, of course,” Flanary stated. “We set ourselves a budget every year and that’s what we stick with. We can’t go over that. We can’t be taking food off the table to race this race car. But the big difference I’ve found between the Late Model and the Open Wheel is the amount of work you have to put into it. The Late Model just takes so much more time to get ready to go to the race track.”
So what tracks will Flanary and his crew be going to in 2017?
“This year we’re going to try to run some of the Iron Man Series and support that since they’re racing a lot in Tennessee and Kentucky,” he offered. “We feel like that’s important to give Chris Tilley a lot of support. We’re also going to try to do some AMS races and little bit of the Hell Tour, mostly UMP stuff. We’ll probably go over in the Carolinas and race a little bit with the Southeast Dirt Modifieds. We’ll just try to spread the love around a little bit. But I’ll tell you that one of the races I’m most looking forward to this year is the Mega 100 at Tyler County, my favorite race track by far.”
Flanary plans to put his Modified on the track in several states this season
And this driver and team set lofty goals for themselves each season.
“Our goal is to always get double-digit wins. We feel like if we can get to ten wins for the year that we’ve had a real good year. It’s hard to get that, especially when you start traveling a lot. That’s always a good year for us if we can get to double-digits.”
